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Roguebook: Richard Garfield slays a spire of his own
- Thread starter Mogri
- Start date
Instantly intrigued by his approach. "Thinning out my deck" was a hard concept to wrap my head around when I played Monster Train (my first real deckbuilder game).
Yeah, that's one of the hardest concepts to wrap yourself around for any sort of deck building game. There's a real tension between build speed and deck complexity, as the longer it takes for you to get your deck's build/concept up and running the more time you give your opponent to spoke your wheel.
Very cool!
Deck thinning is key in Dominion because you start with 10 bad cards. Adding good cards slightly increases your average hand value, but if you can also get rid of the bad cards you can increase the average hand value much more dramatically. Garfield is absolutely correct that it is not required for the genre, that’s just how Donald X. did it. Very interested in seeing what he comes up with.
Deck thinning is key in Dominion because you start with 10 bad cards. Adding good cards slightly increases your average hand value, but if you can also get rid of the bad cards you can increase the average hand value much more dramatically. Garfield is absolutely correct that it is not required for the genre, that’s just how Donald X. did it. Very interested in seeing what he comes up with.
It's not required, but "smaller = better" is a hard paradigm to escape, and this game already shows there are ways to remove cards. Garfield knows his way around a card game, so I'm interested to see what he's done here. I notice he didn't say that this would come at the expense of making minimalist decks unviable, but I don't know of a single card game where an 80-card deck and a 10-card deck can both work equally well.
(One way you can work around "smaller is better" is deck destruction effects, like the Consume variant of Seraph in Monster Train. That only mitigates it, though; it still doesn't make huge viable.)
(One way you can work around "smaller is better" is deck destruction effects, like the Consume variant of Seraph in Monster Train. That only mitigates it, though; it still doesn't make huge viable.)
MrBlarney
(he / him)
I'm very curious as to what extent large decks can be made viable in this game. How do you cultivate having a broad number of cards while controlling for bloat? In other deckbuilders, large decks only make sense in specialized circumstances. Dominion has victory cards like Gardens that encourage large decks. If I recall correctly, One Step From Eden has some artifacts and cards that scale on the number of cards in the deck?
But even in those circumstances, you still want to avoid bloating your deck for no reason. In a Dominion Gardens deck, you still need a certain amount of economic support in the deck to purchase cards at a rapid enough pace. In One Step From Eden, the fact that your deck can (ordinarily) only have one copy of each card means that you still need to be selective of cards you take to maintain the synergy of most of your deck. So it'll be interesting to see whether Roguebook actively encourages larger decks, makes them circumstantial, or asks the player to make strategic decisions on whether they want to go thin or tall in any given run.
But even in those circumstances, you still want to avoid bloating your deck for no reason. In a Dominion Gardens deck, you still need a certain amount of economic support in the deck to purchase cards at a rapid enough pace. In One Step From Eden, the fact that your deck can (ordinarily) only have one copy of each card means that you still need to be selective of cards you take to maintain the synergy of most of your deck. So it'll be interesting to see whether Roguebook actively encourages larger decks, makes them circumstantial, or asks the player to make strategic decisions on whether they want to go thin or tall in any given run.
I mean, if you want to encourage large decks, I'd think you'd want two things: challenges with varied requirements, and aggressive card filtering/selection. The first means that you're encouraged to include a variety of cards to meet a variety of needs, while the latter means you get to look at many of the cards in your deck and choose a subset of them. Other things that might help prop up larger decks would be flexible cards with multiple play modes or mechanics that allow you to use cards for different purposes.
All of that said, though, honestly, I don't care if it succeeds or not. I was on board as soon as I saw a trailer a month or two ago: game looks fun and cool, and I love MTG, so I'm eager to give it a try. Also, for some reason, the hex grid world navigation reminds me of Heroes of Might and Magic 3? Can't put my finger on why, but I loved that game, so that's another check in the pro column.
All of that said, though, honestly, I don't care if it succeeds or not. I was on board as soon as I saw a trailer a month or two ago: game looks fun and cool, and I love MTG, so I'm eager to give it a try. Also, for some reason, the hex grid world navigation reminds me of Heroes of Might and Magic 3? Can't put my finger on why, but I loved that game, so that's another check in the pro column.
Hey this is actually out today, a week earlier than announced (for Steam). Console ports are coming... sometime. Hopefully within a few months?
Having played a few hours, I'm able to address this to an extent.
First, your skill unlocks are tied to the size of your deck. You unlock your first skill when your deck reaches 14 cards or something.
Second, I have yet to find any card removal effects. They were in the trailer, so I'm not sure if they'll show up or if they were removed during development.
There are also some assorted one-off mechanics that encourage larger decks: a boss that eats your cards at a fairly rapid rate and a card that gets stronger for each subsequent card added.
I discovered an infinite combo by accident on my second run.
If I hadn't, there's no way I would've won -- I went into the last boss with about 12 health on each character, and I was lucky to draw into the combo before I died. I ended up having to play about 150 cards on the turn I went infinite -- it was late, I was tired, and I was very careful to avoid playing things in the wrong order, because I'm sure I would've been dead a couple turns later.
Oh by the way: it seems like the "ascension" analogue in this game is a selection of difficulty modifiers. They're on/off toggles, but otherwise, it's vaguely similar to the Pact of Punishment in Hades except that you need to unlock the later modifiers and you're capped on how much total difficulty you can add at first. The modifier I had on this run made everything cost more money but made a bunch more gold faeries show up across the map.
An event gave me this zero-cost Mirror card that gives three copies of my most recently played card. I later got a gem that gives you a gemless copy of the card when you play it. Slot that into the Mirror, play a zero-cost attack, play the original Mirror, play the cloned Mirror. Now you have three free attacks and three Mirrors.
If I hadn't, there's no way I would've won -- I went into the last boss with about 12 health on each character, and I was lucky to draw into the combo before I died. I ended up having to play about 150 cards on the turn I went infinite -- it was late, I was tired, and I was very careful to avoid playing things in the wrong order, because I'm sure I would've been dead a couple turns later.
Oh by the way: it seems like the "ascension" analogue in this game is a selection of difficulty modifiers. They're on/off toggles, but otherwise, it's vaguely similar to the Pact of Punishment in Hades except that you need to unlock the later modifiers and you're capped on how much total difficulty you can add at first. The modifier I had on this run made everything cost more money but made a bunch more gold faeries show up across the map.
I bought this over the weekend. I've attempted two runs so far, both of them losing against the 3rd boss. I like it! It's definitely got a different kind of learning curve for me. I can't tell a) how much I should explore the map, b) if I should always keep adding cards to my deck or stop at some point, and c) how much Block I need to have. My 2nd run was with Sharra/Seifer and was considerably more DPS heavy than the starting hero pair, but also much harder to just stay alive and stay at healthy HP levels throughout the map.
Sword Lady doesn't have much in the way of sustainability, but Angry Rat can -- he's meant to be a bruiser, taking damage but also healing it back. You won't always build him that way, but when paired with Sword Lady, you'll need him to at least be the defensive core of the team (even if he's also your primary damage-dealer).
Maybe my problem was that I did not come across a whole lot of cards for him to keep himself alive. I picked all of his defensive-oriented talents, so he could build Rage easy and had higher HP, but there was only a couple cards I had to heal himself.
Another thing I think I dislike about this game is just kind of inherent to card games anyway, but it's still a little annoying: when your hand draws you a bunch of Block cards and you need to kill things on that turn, or vice versa. With how rhythmic a lot of enemy behaviors seem to be, it does feel like a disconnect sometimes where I know what kind of pattern an enemy does, but my hand just doesn't cooperate for what's coming and there's nothing I can do to avoid taking more damage or whatever.
Finally managed a clear, my 4th attempt, with Sharra/Seifer. The early game was incredibly strong with 2 immediately useful Treasures: at start of battle, all enemies get Critical Hit + Bleed (I think), and then later I got a Treasure with: the first hero attack in the battle inflicts Bleed equal to 1/3 damage. I eventually picked up Seifer's Doom card also, which puts 666 stacks of Critical Hit on an enemy, and slotted in a Gem to guarantee I started with that card. So I had good ways to deal with both regular battles and Bosses/Elites.
Treasures seem like the lynchpin of having really good runs, whereas Gems make good things slightly better, so I've prioritized some of the progression bonuses that give you Treasure/reveal more Treasures on the map.
Treasures seem like the lynchpin of having really good runs, whereas Gems make good things slightly better, so I've prioritized some of the progression bonuses that give you Treasure/reveal more Treasures on the map.
Hey, there's a thread for this!
So, to the surprise of no one, I absolutely adore this game. It takes my two biggest issues with Slay the Spire and fixes both of them: map navigation is detailed, fun and engaging, and the ascension system is quicker and also way more engaging and robust, mutating successive runs in sometimes very interesting ways instead of "number go up" as you climb the ladder. And it even peppers in a meta-progression system (which it uses to layer in mechanics), which is something I always like in my traditional roguelikes but haven't seen much in roguelike deckbuilders yet (I think maybe Monster Slayers had one?).
I almost came smashing out of the gate with a 6-run win streak (incrementing the ascension level between runs, of course), but managed to fuck up a single run in the middle when I was still figuring out the old frog-throwing turtle lady and get my first and to-date only loss, and now I've graduated out of that introductory bracket, so I guess I'll have to settle with a 3 and hope the middle tier (which tracks win streaks separately) goes better for me.
Anyway, I think this game is doing a lot of novel and clever things within what is now a well-trodden genre space, and while I don't think it'll unseat Monster Train as my all-time fave, it's looking to slide in nicely at number two, provided that my interest holds. If you're interested, it's a good time to hop on, because it comes out on Switch next week!
So, to the surprise of no one, I absolutely adore this game. It takes my two biggest issues with Slay the Spire and fixes both of them: map navigation is detailed, fun and engaging, and the ascension system is quicker and also way more engaging and robust, mutating successive runs in sometimes very interesting ways instead of "number go up" as you climb the ladder. And it even peppers in a meta-progression system (which it uses to layer in mechanics), which is something I always like in my traditional roguelikes but haven't seen much in roguelike deckbuilders yet (I think maybe Monster Slayers had one?).
I almost came smashing out of the gate with a 6-run win streak (incrementing the ascension level between runs, of course), but managed to fuck up a single run in the middle when I was still figuring out the old frog-throwing turtle lady and get my first and to-date only loss, and now I've graduated out of that introductory bracket, so I guess I'll have to settle with a 3 and hope the middle tier (which tracks win streaks separately) goes better for me.
Anyway, I think this game is doing a lot of novel and clever things within what is now a well-trodden genre space, and while I don't think it'll unseat Monster Train as my all-time fave, it's looking to slide in nicely at number two, provided that my interest holds. If you're interested, it's a good time to hop on, because it comes out on Switch next week!
I'm intrigued by these games and this one (as well as Monster Train) look very good. But, I just don't seem to have the time to commit to doing roguelike games anymore.
A shame.
A shame.